Right to education: 40,000 public accommodation units from the regions to the universities
Costs range from 150 to 300 euros. There are 15,000 students in excess of the current intake capacity.
Eligible, but not allocated a place. These are the more than 15,000 students who meet the income and merit criteria for university accommodation, but who risk being left without a room due to the limited supply available.
According to figures from Andisu – the association that brings together organisations promoting the right to education across Italia – the relevant local authorities currently manage around 40,000 public student accommodation places. This figure is rising, but still falls short of demand. “Applications from students living away from home who meet the ISEEU and ISPE criteria, as well as those based on academic merit for years after the first, exceed the number of places available through our organisations by more than 15,000,” explains Emilio Di Marzio, president of ANDISU. In practice, every year thousands of students would be entitled to a bed managed by the public service, but risk being excluded. In such cases, the grant often includes an additional allowance intended to cover part of the rent, which is, however, higher. “The figure cited,” Di Marzio points out, “relates, however, to the organisations’ provisional rankings. In the months following the first ranking, many students who have been allocated a place do not accept it, and consequently the ranking moves down significantly.”
It is not easy to paint a comprehensive picture of how students gain access to ‘student accommodation’ across the country: behind the right to university education lies an administrative landscape that is anything but uniform. Responsibility for organising these services lies with the regions, which have adopted different models over time. Some have set up a single body responsible for managing grants, canteens and halls of residence – such as Edisu in Piedmont, DiSCo in Lazio and Erdis in the Marche – whilst others have established a regional agency such as Dsu in Tuscany, ER.GO in Emilia-Romagna, Adisurc in Campania, Ardis in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Aliseo in Liguria. Others, however, have opted for structures organised by university, as is the case in Veneto (with the ESUs in Padua, Venice and Verona), in Sicily (with the ERSU in Palermo, Catania, Messina and Enna) or Sardinia (the ERSU in Cagliari and Sassari). Then there are those who have chosen to entrust the management of student financial support schemes directly to individual universities; in this respect, Lombardy and Calabria stand out on the national scene, as it is the various universities in Lombardy and Calabria themselves that organise and manage the provision of student benefits – from grants to related services – in accordance with their own administrative structures.
To reduce disparities on the supply side, Andisu highlights the need for new public investment and greater consistency in defining essential service standards, alongside the strengthening of the supplementary state fund and the construction of new student accommodation in areas close to major university centres. “The real problem is bringing new accommodation places onto the market managed by organisations promoting the right to education,” points out the president of Andisu, because greater availability would make it possible to allocate accommodation immediately to all eligible students, thereby avoiding the need to turn to the private market.
The NRRP provides for 30 per cent of the 60,000 funded beds to be allocated to organisations responsible for the right to education. Essentially, 18,000 should go to capable and deserving students from low-income backgrounds who have been successful in the selection process. It would therefore be possible, in theory, to provide accommodation for those 15,000 eligible students who have not received support, provided that the number remains constant over the years.
